As a Mac-using lawyer, I often have to solve the problem of how to work with legacy file formats. An awful lot of very good attorneys have done very good work using programs like Microsoft Word (.doc) and WordPerfect (.wpd). When these attorneys are kind enough to send me their pleadings and letters and research outlines in these formats, I use LibreOffice to open them on my Mac. 

From there, I can plagiarize the work of other, smarter attorneys into my new Pages document. (A few years ago, I switched from Word for the Mac to Pages due to stability issues.)

LibreOffice is a project of the The Document Foundation (which has created office productivity programs for spreadsheets and presentations, as well). If you download LibreOffice, I highly recommend you donate to support the Foundation (though I have tried twice in the past few weeks (so that I can practice what I preach here) only to have the process of donating fail...doh!).  

I've been meaning for a while to write about lawyering as the closest distance between words and change. Then, on a recent episode of Let's Start a Law Firm, I accidentally spoke what I had been intending to write. Being a lawyer is awesome and if you're one who happens to love words, it's even awesomer. 

This two minute clip pretty much says it all. 

To be a little (more) self-involved, here are my favorite moments:

"Bank accounts get smaller and they get bigger based on the words that we put on pages."

"I was an English major because I think writing is important and that it can change the world. As a lawyer, you are at the very center of that possible change."  

I feel very grateful to all of the teachers and friends in my life that helped me get okay at writing and at least appreciate that the serial comma matters. 

If you're a lawyer, you owe it to yourself and your clients to become and remain curious about words and writing. They are, often, all we've got and, miraculously, all we need to change the world.